cicada summer (three poems)

ceaseless scream, sound of summer.

I live in Kentucky, and I’m not sure about you all, but we are currently experiencing a cicada summer. They’re everywhere and their sound is constant. My parent’s front yard looks like an alternate universe where Hitchcock decided to make a horror film about insects rather than birds. When I found several in my car today while driving, I originally had the idea to write a silly poem about the incident. But then I had three different ideas. And then they turned from “haha here are some poems about silly, screaming, sex-crazed bugs” to “wait, I think there are some metaphors here.” Anyway, here are the three poems I quickly wrote today.

summer song

do you hear my cry?
ceaseless scream, sound of summer.
i am unending.

R.E. Snodgrass, Insects, their ways and means of living. New York, 1930. BL shelfmark Ac.1875/16. https://archive.org/details/39088001578236

magicicada

seventeen years, i have waited for this. 
lying in wait for one perfect summer. 
i’ll charge into the daylight with a scream 
after a lifetime of silence. 
and you never even knew i was here 
until the second you wished i was gone. 

but i was designed unafraid.
i know what i came here to do.
and i will fly in the face of danger
so long as it serves my purpose.
i don’t ask for mercy; 
i just ask for this moment.

from dirt i came, to dirt i will return.
and you'll forget me, in time.
but i am omnipresent; i am life-giving.
and i’ll ask for nothing in return,
just for one perfect summer.

R.E. Snodgrass, Insects, their ways and means of living. New York, 1930. BL shelfmark Ac.1875/16. https://archive.org/details/39088001578236

early june (draft)

i found a strange sense of peace / the summer the cicadas were so loud / my neighbor thought he heard sirens. // there’s a comfort in the constant. / in the knowing you aren’t alone / with the unending hum of your mind. // so when one flew through the open window / of my 2001 mazda / the same day  my car shut down / at a red light / i took it as a sign. // that whether we be seventeen-year-old insect / or twenty-five-year-old automobile / or twenty-eight-year-old girl / we only have so many seasons / before we have no more. // and i’ve spent a lot of time living in the dark / but long summer days bring / freedom / and courage / and light. // and i’ll be damned if i wait 17 more summers / before i scream / before i am heard. //

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